Northlanders #5

Vertigo's Viking drama continues with Northlanders #5, written by Brian Wood with interior art by Davide Gianfelice — the fifth chapter of "Sven the Returned." Massimo Carnevale's cover sets a tense, intimate mood: a cloaked, battle-worn man and a tattooed woman wielding a drawn sword face an unseen threat in a shadowed, ornate interior. The deep blues and reds give the scene a brooding urgency that captures exactly the kind of gritty, human-scale Norse storytelling this series does so well.